Monthly Archives: August 2015

I am shocked that I haven’t posted anything in almost two months. Life has been very hectic these past few months (I’ve grown to hate summer vacation and having to deal with rowdy nieces and nephew). Thankfully, school starts next week, so I’ll be free of my nieces most of the day and I can get some work done on both the blog and my various writing projects. Speaking of my writing projects, I’ve been frustrated at the lack of progress I’ve had over the past few months. I have ideas. I know where I want to go with several projects. But getting down to writing? No such luck.

As I get ready to finally get some writing done, the mental studio I have in my head is in turmoil. (As always happens when I feel ready to start the writing process). I struggle with the need to write short stories. I don’t know if I should write novels, series, or super novels. Characters are wanting to move to other projects, And I’m likely a grimdark writer.

The portal fantasy(ies) have returned to being a bane for me. There are three project ideas I have: a sword and sorcery/ planetary romance type story that could be a standalone or expand into a series of (maybe) standalone novels, a definite standalone novel that is rather literary, and an epic fantasy that features a (rather) contained multiverse of a few worlds. I like ideas one and three with idea two being jettisoned as something I’m not sure I want to write, too literary I think. The sword and sorcery/ planetary romance project is more personal and deals with some issues I have with the genre. The epic project is more colonial in theme. For a while, I didn’t see the two ideas melding together well. One project has Earth as home to the protagonists, but I want Earth nowhere near the colonial story. I know I’m being skittish. And I have found a way to work the two ideas together. I just don’t know if the combined project will become to unwieldy.

Furthermore, Honor Gale looks to jump ship to the portal fantasy from the magic project. Why exactly? I don’t know. Time will tell, I think.

With Gale moving to Project Portal, I need to find something to do with Jett and Tyler.

An epic fantasy featuring superheroes is far more difficult to write than I imagined it could be. I want to emulate, as much as I can, a long comic book run (like Wolfman on New Teen Titans or Claremont on Uncanny X-Men). The problem with this idea is that there are a lot of stories forming a, perhaps not coherent, whole. Can this be done in novel format, even with multiple novels? I don’t know. Furthermore, I want to try and differentiate this epic fantasy from any inspiration it may accrue from Marvel or DC. I know what I want to do, I just don’t know how to do it.

Project Magic is going well. I’ve hit upon where I want to go with this project. I just need to stop myself from researching myself to death. That comes from wanting more realistic and multicultural magical traditions. I also need to decide exactly how realistic I want to be.

Project Magic spawned out of a secondary epic fantasy I’ve wanted to write for years. For a time, I thought Project Magic supplanted the earlier project. That does not seem to be the case any longer. Project Magic has become, perhaps, more traditionally epic than Project Epic (I need a better name). I won’t go into too much detail with this project at the moment. Maybe some other time.

But where should Tyler and Jett go? I don’t know. I need to figure out where each project is going. I’ve already written how Tyler and Jett would fit in Project Redwind. I’m not sure how I’d fit them in Project Magic. And Project Epic will be, honestly, a home coming for the two (under different names, of course).

This is just a small sample of the turmoil going on inside my mental studio. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get everything back on track soon. Time will tell.